Jayden's Juice: A cannabis oil helping control seizures

Two fathers in Modesto claim modern medicine isn't cutting it for their sons.

Author:
Anne Di Grazia

Published:
1:39 PM PDT October 23, 2016

Updated:
1:39 PM PDT October 23, 2016

Two fathers in Modesto claim modern medicine isn't cutting it for their sons.

The boys were having up to a 1,000 seizures a day. Now, they’ve turned to cannabis and say it’s saving both of their sons’ lives.

In a home video from five years ago, you can see Jayden David having horrible seizures back-to-back. He has Dravets syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy and autism.

Now, Jayden is 10 years old and sometimes goes up to eight days without a seizure.

"Life isn't perfect, but the quality of life is a million times better than we have ever had," Jayden's dad Jason said.

The 10-year-old takes a cannabis oil to help his seizures.

"We stick with this oil, its CBD oil and it has a trace about of THC one milligram of THC," Jason said.

It has non-psychoactive ingredients, Jason added, which means his son isn't getting high, but rather, getting better.

"My son used to be high on pharmaceuticals, 22 pills a day, that's what you call a chemical high," Jason explained, "I'm trying to ween him off the pharmaceuticals and get my son back."

Now Jayden takes about a pill and a quarter a day, along with his Jayden's Juice.

Three-year old Kase Reynolds also takes the oil and started at eight months old. His parents, Mike and Katherine Reynolds, said out of desperation, they tried cannabis and have not turned back. Kase only takes Jayden's Juice.

"During this interview, [he] might have had 20 seizures,” Mike said. “He still has his issues but we are in so much of a better place.”

Mike and Jason run the Jayden's Juice company and said people are reaching out to them from all over the world, some even moving to get the oil. Both men said seeing their sons suffer is what drove them to try cannabis and they have not turned back.

"Our two kids are the reason why we do what we do, if we could help more that would be great," Mike said.

Dr. Michael A. Rogawski, a neurologist for the UC Davis Medical Center, said CBD is not an FDA regulated product. Rogawski said there is a lot of exciting new developments and testing related to CBD underway in how it can help people with epilepsy. This part of cannabis does not have psychoactive properties and Rogwaski said it does have anti-seizure properties. He said at the moment it has only been tested of two types of epilepsy. He does not recommend family members to take the treatment of epilepsy into their own hands.